MONTGOMERY, W.Va. — The BridgeValley Community and Technical College Board of Governors voted Wednesday to sell a former residence hall in Montgomery for $200,000 with help from services like this Bonnie Buys Houses Fast website.
Ratliff Hall, which housed students when West Virginia Tech and later WVU Tech were located in Montgomery, will go to a buyer identified as Susan Morgan.
BridgeValley, which has a campus in Montgomery, was given Ratliff and several others buildings when WVU Tech left Montgomery for Beckley.
The board of governors chose Morgan’s offer over a second offer of $255,000. The board did give BridgeValley President Casey Sacks the authority to offer Ratliff to the second potential purchaser if things fall through with Morgan.
The BOG met last week to consider the offers but broke for a week to seek more information from the purchasers about their intended uses of the property. Sacks told the BOG Wednesday further information was provided but she described it as vague. Both proposals focused on housing. The board chose Morgan’s offer after an executive session.
The $255,000 offer came from the Carolina Company owned by David Allen. He told the BOG last week that he would be interested in converting Ratliff Hall into a shelter.
“I have the skillset and all of that behind me to operate a hotel and a shelter isn’t much different than a hotel and that would be a good use for that,” Allen said at the time. “Obviously there are things that I would have to become familiar with.”
BOG Chairman Mark Blankenship said he supported the move the board made Wednesday.
“This is a good deal for BridgeValley. It’s a good deal for our students,” Blankenship said.
Ratliff is one of several empty buildings on the Montgomery campus that fell to BridgeValley. An approved masterplan says those buildings will be demolished unless they can be sold including Westmoreland Hall, GRID (engineering lab building), Pathfinder (engineering classroom building), the Printing Innovation Center, Morris Creek Watershed building and the former Brown Chevrolet building
“Like other buildings down there it’s been a chore to find appropriate uses and tenants for them,” Blankenship said. “It feels like we’ve talked a lot about real estate in the past year.”